418- Ashes of Noctheria
POV Viktor Averwyn:
The guards standing watch remained at their posts when we arrived and stopped before the iron gates. Edric and Lunara with Lyris and Andrei, their trusted wolves. Aldren with Elowen, Bratvo, his most loyal guard, and two others. Tension thickened the air.
Lonut, Boris, and Cezar stayed close, ready for anything. Seraphine never letting go of my hand.
Elowen stepped forward, wearing a long brown dress, her hair loose. Her expression was hard, her eyes brighter and clearer. There was something different about her now, something unmistakably witch-like. Far more confident. Determined.
“I’m going to focus on piercing the energy and opening a portal.”
“When it happens, go in. We have to cross before it closes.”
Everyone agreed in silence. Aldren stayed behind her to catch her if she lost strength. I also placed Seraphine behind me, Edric doing the same with Lunara.
The still air felt strange, heavy, rotten. The entire atmosphere around us seemed dead, frozen in time. That was when I understood the Elders intended to remain there forever, protected inside a dome, almost like the living dead. Or maybe they were waiting for an opportunity to escape.
Elowen raised her arms and tilted her head back, chanting toward the cloudy sky in unknown languages. Her voice grew stronger, louder. Until a fireball exploded in the middle of the gray aura before the gate.
A shrill, savage scream emerged from it. The flames spread much faster than last time, tearing open a hole.
A bolt of lightning suddenly split the sky, and some wolves surrounding the area startled, instinctively stepping back before quickly returning to position.
She screamed again, as if commanding the flames, and the fire devoured the energy, fighting for space. Her magic slowly won, becoming more and more powerful until a huge portal opened.
The gates burst open violently. Blood streamed from her nose and ears before she collapsed, nearly falling to her knees. Aldren caught her in his arms immediately.
“Sel… wake up…”
It was astonishing. Inexplicable.
She lifted her face and opened her eyes.
“Help me get inside,” she whispered. “Quickly… before it closes…”
He picked her up. We didn’t wait another second. We stormed into the castle, ready to fight the sentinels.
I kept Seraphine behind me, knowing she wouldn’t stay outside and having no idea where was truly safer.
We were welcomed by silence.
There were no sentinels there. Only stone walls with wooden beams and furniture, chandeliers filled with burning candles in every corner. The air was stale, suffocating, carrying the stench of decay and rot.
“Holy shit!” Lonut covered his nose. “Smells like there are corpses in here!”
I held Seraphine’s hand and moved through the wide rooms lit only by torches, everyone following behind me. Guided by the horrible smell leading us through corridor after corridor. There wasn’t a single sign of life anywhere.
“Where did the sentinels go?” Edric asked, never releasing Lunara. Aldren still carried Elowen protectively in his arms.
“Good question,” I muttered.
The meeting room was empty. Our five chairs remained in place in a circle, along with the three old men’s chairs in the corner.
We descended the spiral staircase, and the foul odor led us into the dungeons, where the eternal prisons were located. To the south were the smaller cells, barely four meters wide, with iron bars and the smell of urine. The worst prisoners were taken there, sometimes even sacrificed.
In the northern corridor, the cells were larger. The strongest odor came from there, along with the freezing air. The stone floors and walls were covered in slime that even the chandeliers overflowing with candles couldn’t warm.
“They’re in the last cell.” Aldren sniffed the air and grimaced in rage. “I hate coming down here! This is where they locked Elowen up when they accused her of witchcraft and where she transformed.”
She shrank into herself silently.
We headed there, the three of us with our destined mates beside us, wolves behind, footsteps echoing through the silence. Then we saw the orange glow of dozens of chandeliers lighting the filthy room.
The bars stood open. Maybe they knew that if we reached this place, iron bars wouldn’t stop us.
There was a huge bed in one corner where the three old men rested side by side against the wooden headboard. In the opposite corner lay piles of sentinels, motionless beneath black hoods and robes of the same color. Fifteen, maybe twenty of them. Sitting and lying against the wall, still alive.
Unconscious.
It was bizarre. Strange.
I frowned, still holding Seraphine as my gaze returned to the silent Elders, shadows of what they once were.
They looked shriveled and dried out, barely short of becoming breathing skeletons. Bony hands. Long cloaks hanging over wrinkled gray skin and bones.
Motionless, but alert.
They sensed our presence. The eyeless one sat with his hands folded in his lap. The mouthless one curled in the corner. The earless one sat between them, moving his lips slowly without sound.
“Put me down, Aldren. I’m better,” Elowen asked, and he obeyed, wiping the blood from her face. She looked at them and shuddered. “There’s magic here too, surrounding the bed. But it’s weaker. They need it.”
“They can hear us,” I said, rage burning my eyes so fiercely I had to stop myself from transforming and tearing the three demons apart.
“Yes, but… they won’t waste energy speaking. It’s like a dome protecting them.” She raised a hand, concentrating. “I can’t do it alone. I’m weak.”
“Enough.” Aldren held her back, but she shook her head.